<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Ill-Fated by draculard</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26575126">Ill-Fated</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard'>draculard</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pellaeon/Thrawn 30 Day Ficlets [22]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Procedures, Post-Bilbringi AU, Pre-Relationship, Shock, Thrawn Lives AU, failure - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:28:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,892</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26575126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Some strategies, Pellaeon mused, were just destined to fail.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gilad Pellaeon/Thrawn | Mitth’raw’nuruodo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Pellaeon/Thrawn 30 Day Ficlets [22]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904581</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ill-Fated</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Some strategies, Pellaeon mused, were just destined to fail. The same could be said of some missions. He’d heard plenty of horror stories; he’d lived through a few of them himself.</p><p>This, he thought, watching the respirator inflate Thrawn’s collapsed lung, was the worst of them. </p><p>Rukh had been killed by the stormtrooper guard before he could escape the bridge, and the medical staff and med droids alike had all assured Pellaeon that Thrawn would survive. But Bilbringi had been lost either way, and when Thrawn eventually woke up, Pellaeon didn’t know how he would explain it to him. </p><p>He’d thought he’d come so far since Endor. He’d thought they all had. But with their leader temporarily out of commission, they’d lost their heads. Or rather, Pellaeon had. He could only comfort himself by listing the casualties in his head — a low number, one which could have been much higher if he’d stayed to fight.</p><p>Thrawn had told him once that targeted assassination never worked against any enemy worth fighting. With a sigh, Pellaeon leaned forward across the hospital bed, taking Thrawn’s cold hand in his own. He eyed the bandages on Thrawn’s chest, already starting to show red spots of blood where Rukh had stabbed him. </p><p>What would Thrawn say, he wondered, when he woke and learned that the Empire had crumbled so fast?</p><hr/><p>They'd told him Thrawn might wake soon, but it was a sheer miracle of scheduling that Pellaeon happened to be in the visitor’s chair next to Thrawn’s bed when he awoke only a few days later. There were no dramatic groans or spasms of pain; he simply opened his eyes, winced a little, and then turned to face Pellaeon; after a moment of quiet staring through hooded eyes, he fell back asleep again. He reached for Pellaeon apparently by reflex, one hand resting on the bed sheets between them, his fingers not quite touching the rail. </p><p>An hour later, he woke again for good. Pellaeon leaned forward, checking Thrawn’s eyes for signs of coherence, and tried to smile rather than grimace when he saw Thrawn studying him back. </p><p>“Water?” Thrawn asked, his voice coming out as a croak. He didn’t lift his head. </p><p>“Yes,” Pellaeon said. He had a pitcher waiting and wasted no time in pouring a glass. “Do you need help sitting up?”</p><p>Thrawn shook his head, propping himself up with some difficulty against the headboard. He took the glass and held it in both hands, but only sipped from it once before handing it back. The shivers started a moment later, shock and blood loss working together to drive Thrawn’s body temperature down. The cool climate of the sick bay and the fact that he was wearing only his hospital pajama pants probably didn’t help. </p><p>A med droid responded to Pellaeon’s call, bringing a stack of heated blankets with it. It folded most of them over Thrawn’s legs but wrapped the final blanket around his shoulders with a gentleness that seemed to irritate him; he bore this treatment silently, uncomplaining, and then turned his gaze on Pellaeon again. His face was lined with strain; his eyes were dim, a little dazed, but gaining sharpness by the second.</p><p>“What happened?” he asked.</p><p>Pellaeon hesitated. “What’s the last thing you remember?” he countered. </p><p>In response, Thrawn folded the heated blanket back from his chest and examined the healing wound on his chest, the skin slowly knitting itself together beneath a bacta patch.</p><p>“Perhaps you should start with the casualties,” Thrawn said. </p><hr/><p>There was no flicker of disappointment in Thrawn’s eyes when Pellaeon told him how he’d ordered the retreat. He recounted the paralyzing jab to his throat from Rukh, and how he’d recovered just in time to see the blood spread over Thrawn’s chest. He found he couldn’t meet Thrawn’s eyes when he spoke of looking through the viewport, taking stock of the way the tides had turned against them.</p><p>When he finally spoke the words, “I ordered a retreat,” he stared down at his own clenched hands. There was an unbearable silence; he could only repeat his own statement in his head, his memory of his voice turning sour the longer it ruminated around his brain.</p><p>“A wise decision,” said Thrawn finally, mildly.</p><p>Pellaeon didn’t dare to look up.</p><p>“It puts us in a good position for our next move,” Thrawn continued, the tone of his voice turning to a thoughtful muse as he gazed around the open sick bay room. The beds opposite him were empty, the curtains pulled back. He curled his legs up to his chest and rearranged the blankets the medical droid had placed over his lap. “Comm someone to bring my datapad,” he said.</p><p>Pellaeon only blinked. It was like Thrawn didn’t realize what effect his words had. Slowly, as if coming out of a fog, Pellaeon turned and rifled through the satchel hanging off his chair. He pulled out Thrawn’s datapad and handed it to him, noting the flash of raised eyebrows and a quick smile across Thrawn’s face as he took it. </p><p>“What else have you got in there?” Thrawn asked with a nod toward the satchel as he powered the datapad on.</p><p>“Datacards, mostly,” said Pellaeon, feeling dazed. “Bridge reports from across the fleet. Surveillance. I’ve brought them down here after every shift. And — ah —” Cursing himself for his stupidity, he reached into the satchel again and pulled out a folded sweater he’d fetched from Thrawn’s quarters. “I thought you might be cold in here when you woke up.”</p><p>Thrawn set the datapad down, looking pleasantly surprised, and when Pellaeon gestured questioningly toward the sweater, he nodded. Pellaeon leaned forward in his chair, helping Thrawn pull the sweater on. He pushed the blanket off his shoulders and worked the sweater sleeves over his arms, mindful of the wound all the time. He was busy adjusting the collar when Thrawn murmured, “The medical staff won’t reprimand you for this? Surely I'm supposed to be in scrubs.”</p><p>Pellaeon hesitated as he did up the last button. “No, I ran it by them first, sir. They can still access your wound if they need to. They just have to push it up above your ribs.” Then, since there was no harm in saying so, "You're pretty much out of the woods, sir, medically."</p><p>Thrawn smoothed the sweater down and nodded. He picked his datapad back up again, reading through the reports rapidly and in silence. </p><p>Pellaeon felt as if his stomach had turned into a gaping black hole gnawing at the rest of his insides. Without anything to do, he heard Thrawn's words running through his head again, eating each other on an endless loop. He was about to say something when the med droid returned to take Thrawn’s vitals. Pellaeon watched without really seeing anything as the droid rolled Thrawn’s sleeve up for him, taking his blood pressure, his temperature, a sample of his blood.</p><p>With a last bit of parting advice — “Don’t stand, sir, or you’re likely to faint” — the droid left them alone again.</p><p>“Sir?” Pellaeon said.</p><p>Thrawn glanced up from his datapad and assured him, “I don’t plan on standing soon.”</p><p>Pellaeon absorbed this and shook his head, wishing Thrawn hadn’t spoken at all. It just shattered his concentration and forced him to reorganize his thoughts all over again. </p><p>“I have to apologize,” he said finally, his tongue heavy. </p><p>Thrawn’s eyebrows furrowed. After a long moment, he looked away from the datapad to study Pellaeon. “No need. You couldn’t have fought Rukh,” he said tentatively, almost suspiciously, as if he knew this wasn’t quite what Pellaeon was sorry for but couldn’t figure out what else it might be.</p><p>“Not for that,” Pellaeon said. He tried to take a deep breath, but the air came into his lungs feeling thin and cold. “Sir, when you first took command of the Chimaera, I thought you were exhibiting a lack of faith in my ability. Taking my ship because you didn't trust me, that is. Over time, I changed my opinion and suspected you had instead selected me as something like a protégé.”</p><p>Thrawn’s face was unreadable, but he was listening to Pellaeon intently. </p><p>“If that assumption was correct,” Pellaeon said, hesitating over the next words, “then the only conclusion I can reach from Bilbringi is that I’ve failed you, sir. We’ve discussed multiple times over how the Empire fell at Endor when the Emperor was killed; now, the same thing has happened, or nearly so — with hardly any change.”</p><p>“<em>Failed</em>,” Thrawn repeated scornfully. “Everyone fails. You’ve seen me fail countless times, Gilad.” Then, with a softer and more puzzled tone, he asked, “What could you have done differently?” </p><p>The puzzlement didn’t help. Pellaeon sat back, his heart racing a little, and took another shallow breath. “If you were still conscious, sir, you would never have ordered a retreat.”</p><p>“Not necessarily true,” said Thrawn at once.</p><p>“You would have been able to—”</p><p>“You are not me,” said Thrawn sharply, sitting up a little straighter to look Pellaeon in the eye. “What I would do is irrelevant, Gilad. I’m not teaching you to be <em> me; </em>if I wanted a clone, I assure you, I would have taken advantage of Mount Tantiss while I had the chance.”</p><p>When Pellaeon said nothing, only stared at his hands, Thrawn darkened the datapad and set it aside. </p><p>“A good leader knows his strengths and weaknesses and adapts his plans accordingly,” Thrawn said. “You are a good leader, Gilad. You made the most practical move you could, and you did so quickly, without hesitation or equivocation. You minimized our losses and set the Imperial Navy up for a counterstrike in the process. You did well.”</p><p>After a long moment of studying Pellaeon’s face, which was now heated from a mixture of shame and sorrow, Thrawn settled back against the headboard, placing one hand flat against the wound on his chest.</p><p>“You <em> are </em> my protégé,” he said roughly, picking his datapad up again with his free hand and massaging the wound with the other. “Don’t insult me by saying your performance was substandard.”</p><p>They sat in silence, Thrawn seeming to smolder in a rare show of pique as he glared at his datapad, while Pellaeon found himself unable to speak even if he wanted to. When the medical droid returned, this time bringing a fresh bacta patch and a plastic cup of pain medication, they were both relieved for the distraction.</p><p>They did their best not to speak on the subject of Bilbringi again.</p><hr/><p>Thrawn’s recovery was as fast as it could be, given the circumstances. He was released from sick bay less than two weeks after Bilbringi; he strode onto the bridge in his white uniform without warning even Pellaeon first, and acknowledged the wave of applause that greeted him with only a brief nod.</p><p>After that, the Imperial reconstructive work began again. Their next strategies were more successful than the first campaign; their battles saw fewer and fewer casualties as time wore on. </p><p>When their first real victory came, Pellaeon stared out the viewport at the retreating New Republic armada and remembered how Thrawn had reached for him in that half-conscious state in the sick bay, before he really knew what he was doing.</p><p>Perhaps, he thought, some endeavors weren’t so ill-fated after all.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>